Redefiners Podcast | Feike Sijbesma, Honorary Chairman and Former CEO of Royal DSM

We define leadership as you need to have a vision, you need to be connected with your people in the world, you need to implement that vision by being decisive and then generate results and develop people, etc. etc. All the leadership characteristics, but for me the whole leadership journey starts with insight. Insight in yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, insight in the people you work with, and insight in the world you operate in.

Oh gosh, where did you get that from? I was not extremely successful at elementary school. I needed to change halfway through because I think people didn't have a word for that at that moment, but I think I was dyslectic. Most likely I'm still so. I needed to move schools. That was not easy. My parents didn't find that very promising. Oldest of four kids, I did the six years of high school but every year just barely. After that I wanted to go to university. My wish was to do medical molecular biology. The school said it is a miracle you finished school having done your exam to go to university, but molecular biology will be too complicated for you. And my father, who has been very influential, said if you want to do it, I believe in you. I always did. So far you got all negative advice and promised the contrary and show the contrary. So please do. I did it, and in the third year of my study I got a prize for being the best student in the Netherlands. You get a sum of money and an award. The sum of money as a student was most important, and I thought, hey, I'm not that stupid. That's good. Maybe the first moment that I thought hey, maybe I can do something. I mean something. And from there I developed further. Then I studied molecular medical biology and later on I did my MBA.

Yes, I studied biology, biotechnology, and I studied business administration, so I thought I want to combine both. I didn't want to go for my PhD, I didn't want to go to research, I want to go to business. So I told all my friends I will work for a company with an unpronounceable name in English, Gist-Brocades, which was the biggest biotech company in the Netherlands at that moment in time. And it was so logical with my studies that I should enter there. So I told all my friends that will be my career. So I sent the letter to them, and in a couple of weeks, two weeks, I got the letter back: thanks but there is no opportunity for somebody with your background. We keep it in file if applicable and we might ever come back on that or not. So that was again a disappointment because I looked stupid for my friends because I told them already I will work there. So I called the company and I said there is a mistake here because with my background I'm very useful for your company, so please allow me. And they said no. So I said okay, who is your boss? You work for HR. Who is your boss? Can I speak with him or her? She said no, but I will tell him. The boss came two days later and said there's no place for you. I said, always if you want, give me 10 minutes of your time next week. He said well I do that, you can enter 10 minutes before two to two. And I entered there and I stayed for half an hour, an hour, and he said well maybe we should hire you. So then I had a lot of other interviews and at the end they hired me and the rest is history. I had a strong ambition that I need to show, but that maybe also came from my younger years where people said well you will not make it, most likely maybe not smart enough, and in the study I learned the contrary of that, so I felt hey, let me prove. So I was ambitious if I need to be honest, but also I thought that's let's explore. And by the way, that's also a message I give to my children when they ask, Daddy, what do you expect from us and where do we end up? Of course I found it dangerous with two boys having a so-called successful father being the CEO, but I always say, hey guys, you got your body and your mind only once in your life. Find out what is in there. Unwrap the gift that you are yourself, your mind, your body, your heart. Find out who you are with your strengths, your weaknesses, your passions, and try to develop something which you think fits with you. And I have been exploring that also in my career.

Later on Gist-Brocades was acquired by DSM and that's the way I came into DSM. DSM was founded in 1902 and DSM started indeed as Dutch State Mines, a coal mining company owned by the Dutch government in the south of the Netherlands. And at this moment it's not Dutch anymore, it's all over the world. The Netherlands is a smaller country. It's not owned by the state anymore. That went away for decades and we have no mines anymore, but we kept the three letters. DSM nowadays, the younger generation of DSM said it stands for Doing Something Meaningful. And it's not my invention but there, and I like it. We changed the company. The generation before me changed the coal mining operations and closed it down and changed the company to a bulk chemical company, very successful pioneers in all kinds of bulk chemicals. And in my tenure of 14 years at the helm we changed it further from a bulk chemical company into a science-based company mainly in life sciences and nutrition, the biggest in the world in health, in biomedical, and all of that stuff and kind of sustainable living if you want to call it like that. So it changed the company quite drastically. Divested many parts, acquired new parts, changed, increased the innovation budgets tremendously, moved from purely cost leadership to marketing and R&D and innovation. So a lot of changes in the company because we didn't change only the portfolio but we changed therefore also the culture, the way to operate. We have in that period made it to the most sustainable company in our industry, won all prizes on that, which I found important, but also generated a lot of shareholder value, 450% over those years. So I wanted to prove also that doing well financially, economically by doing good for the world can go hand in hand together, although there was a lot of skeptic reactions at that moment in time. But when I handed it over to my successor, people say oh you are right, they don't have to be mutually exclusive, doing well, doing good. Even if I fast forward another 15 years, those two things have to go, will go, must go hand in hand together, otherwise you lose your customers, you lose society, you lose your employees, etc.

I was making in Gist-Brocades DSM a fast career and in the very beginning I liked that. I saw hey, I make more salary, I'm doing well. And then I start realizing well, this is nice that you make career, but with your career you increase your influence, your impact, maybe have power even, and all of that gives responsibility. And what are you doing with the responsibility? And this is for me the most important characteristic of leadership. We define leadership as you need to have a vision, you need to be connected with your people in the world, you need to implement that vision by being decisive and then generate results and develop people, etc. etc. All the leadership characteristics, but for me it starts the whole leadership journey starts not with that, it starts with insight. Insight in yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, insight in the people you work with, and insight in the world you operate in. And insight you only get when you listen, when you read, when you observe, when you travel. The difficult or the sad thing is when people develop to leaders, they are more and more on stage telling, teaching, they are more and more making the stories instead of listening to stories, and therefore have a risk not to develop new insights. And I found that important. The other thing, Nannis, is I'm a biologist. I grew up with Darwin and he is my great hero. Obviously I never met him, but he is my great hero. And what he wrote in maybe one of the most important books of the world, The Origin of Species, where we all come from, to my own surprise Darwin was surprised: it is not the biggest, it's not the fastest, but it is the fittest who will survive. And fit is not the one who went most to the gym, but the one who is the most adaptive. And I felt always as a company you need to be adaptive, not only species but also people and organizations need to be adaptive. And nothing feels more comfortable than putting your anchors and stay on the place where you are. That feels comfortable but is not good. And not moving feels not taking risks, but in the long run it is also a big, big risk often. So therefore inspired by Darwin, I said we should move, we should change, we should dare to change. So the deeper insights I got from speaking, learning from people around me, and the dare, the guts to do that I got from Darwin.

By setting the example, by asking questions to your people. If you want people to do A, you can say you should do A, you can also say what would hold you back of doing A. And if you say it in the first way, most likely you mobilize defense mechanisms with people because they feel attacked. If you ask it in the second way, what holds you back from doing that, you trigger creativity with people. Or if something went wrong, the people came to me and said yeah listen, we did it wrong here and we lost a lot of money. And I said okay, then I always ask who's responsible, who's accountable. I remember one occasion where something went wrong with an acquisition. At the end they needed to find out for me who was responsible, and they came back and said the tax department. I said no, no, no, the tax department is walls and paper and chairs and tables. It doesn't speak. There's somebody. And at the end I got an email from the whole group, the second person in tax department said I was mainly responsible for it and this is what I did wrong and this is what I didn't see and this is what I learned from that and we will do better. I said well could you all come next day at 9:00 in my office. They were all there and I said to the person, thank you. Now we know what went wrong, we know who was accountable. You shared it with other people, we learn from it. Great, meeting is over. 30 seconds and the rest looked like and now what? And now was already there, so let's go to work. Then you create a different culture in the organization. We installed the Hall of Failures instead of the Hall of Fame. We initiated funerals for projects that failed. I remember one project where we made a coating for picture frames and the coating is letting all the light through the glass and therefore you have much better view, no reflection of the picture frame. Made the glass much too expensive. Only museums were buying it. So after spending so many millions, we buried the project at our funerals, with some music and a coffin. We put the project description in and said that was it. And we always invite people. There was a guy there who said so why are you burying this project while we spent so many millions? There's a brilliant innovation but no market. And he said, and if you apply those coatings on solar panels, do all the photons then go through and do you get a higher yield? And we were looking there. Um, yeah, I think so because that's what's happening. All the photons go through. So what is the yield improvement? We have no clue. Why not? We never thought about it. We never tested it. And we stopped the funeral, started testing it, and built a great business out of an anti-reflective coating for solar panels. So a different culture, different setting to create creativity, to create innovations. That was critical for the company. And there are numerous of those kind of examples in the company and we benefited from it.

The biggest acquisition that DSM ever did and it turned out well, but I found it very difficult was the acquisition of Roche Nutrition. But I found the decision-making a redefining because I was so scared because it could have gone wrong. But if I talk about the redefining which also redefined my life, there were many moments. But one moment: we started to work as the biggest nutrition company in the world with the World Food Programme and became the biggest contributor to them. And at a certain moment we were in the south of Bangladesh at a village which was cut off from food help because the world was in a crisis and needed to own money, and literally have said to that village 'hold your hunger for the coming two years and then we might be back.' This is literally what's happening from time to time in the world with food help when a crisis hits. I found it so strange to understand how the world works. And I was there and showing how DSM could be of help. And at a certain moment a mother handed over a helpless child to me. And before I know, I opened up my arms and standing there with her child in my arm, and the translator of the World Food Programme said 'She's saying take it.' And I said no, no, no, I cannot take a child. Take it. And she said 'You know what do I know about this?' And then the mother started crying and she said 'You know that if you come back in two years, I don't have six children anymore. You know it, I know it, the world knows it. Take my youngest child, then she has life.' Everything was going to my mind. I thought she is right. She will not have six children anymore. She is right. She knows, I know, the world knows. She is right. If I maybe take a child, then maybe that child will have a living. That is impossible. Is that I do that? It's legally impossible, it's morally impossible. I shouldn't do it. But I found it very hard and very difficult. So I was standing there. I ask her to open and to take her child back. She closed her arms crying. And at a certain moment I said to her, being translated, 'Please, please literally open your arms in a metaphoric way and in a physical way. Open up your arms for your youngest child. I also don't know how long she will live, but she needs you as a mother, and not me.' And at a certain moment she opens the arms, gives the baby back. And the two words 'you know' always stayed with me. And leading a business with purpose to do something for the world... you know it's true. We know, we know where the world is. And we found it sometimes difficult to address it and to help etc. But leaders of companies need not to say it's difficult, but need to find the ways in which we can help. And that has been redefining for me and motivating me.

Well the economy ever started by barter, trade. One was better in growing crops, the other in catching buffalos, and we said if we specialize, you on this, I on that, and exchange at the end of the day, the world is better off. Then later on we didn't exchange goods anymore but we use gold as a trading mechanism, and later on money, and later on nowadays of course 8% of the money physically exists, the rest is written on a computer and everybody believes it's there. That's good news: trust in the financial system. But if you go further on the specialization of competences and we did that in an extensive way globally, it's called globalization, and we made use of each other's competences. That's good and many countries came out of poverty due to that, but not all countries and not all people in all countries. And I think we should make globalization, we should make trade, we should make our economic system much more inclusive for all. It is good, our system has many advantages, but to be honest it's not inclusive enough and that won't hold. There are a billion richest people in the world consuming about 45% of global resources. If India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Africa etc. will further develop, they will claim their part of it and rightly so. So we need to find a different way of distributing our wealth, distributing our economy that all benefit from that. I believe that technology and innovation can be of help here, the sharing of it can also be of help here, the different economic systems here and there can help. Understanding that money is a means and not a goal in itself. If your company is not contributing to a better world, why should the world want to have your company in the world? Think about it. So thinking about purpose of companies, thinking about what you can do, those kind of system changes is what we need.

I've been a strong promoter of inclusion and diversity. And as I experienced, I always say listen, to be with a group of men same age, same university, reading same newspapers, preferably from the same political party, that is the party of reconfirmation, the party of recognition. It tastes delicious, it doesn't bring you further. But it tastes delicious the whole day reconfirming each other. And you should not only use that but enjoy the taste of the surprise of having other people in your group. And that has to do with bias, has to do with inclusion. Who say oh are we all saying this? I think it should be different. I was always fascinated, and it is an old story in the meantime of Lehman Brothers or Lehman Brothers and Sisters as it should have been called. But the interviews you saw of many people of Lehman Brothers, they knew they were running off a cliff and there was nobody who said 'hey guys, hold here, stop first. The context question: what are we doing?' And here you see the danger of having a monoculture. And I have experienced the benefit of the party of the surprise instead of the party of the recognition. Love it, love it. Try new tastes.

As a board member, even not when you're a chair, if you're a chair you have a little bit more influence, but as a board member you cannot dictate, you cannot determine. The executive leadership should do that. But what you can do is have an influence. What you can do is ask questions. What you can do is express your own values. What you can do is discuss the legacy of your CEO etc. And I think you should also start that the board itself have knowledge and understanding, including the executive management. Do you know what the issues are with climate change? Do you know the different approaches? Do you know the difference between Scope 1, Scope 2, Scope 3? Do you know how it works with carbon pricing also globally? These kind of discussions, these kind of questions you should have, you can have, you must have as a board with your executive management and you can help them. And of course things I already mentioned will come back. Yeah, but what about the shells? Yeah, but what about the financial performance? Yeah, but what about this and that? And they are all correct questions. But we can address those questions. It's not that they only work against us. We need to reconcile the different interests. And if you do it in a clever way, you can make out of sustainability your income streams also. And that's the only way to make sustainability really sustainable. That is what I think you can do as a board member.

Oh gosh, now you will like it.

Doing well by doing good.

Charles Darwin. It's not a corporate leader, but he inspired me a lot.

I'm a people's person. I try to interact with people, to listen to people. And I would like to have at least two things every day: a new insight, a new idea, a new whatever, and some fun and laughter.

Mostly walk. Make a walk with my wife because then you have no phone, there's nothing, you're just outside in nature and you're almost forcing your brain to unwind.

Oh gosh, I think that I will fail in almost all of them. The only sport I use now, I don't know if it's Olympic, maybe it's golf, but I'm not good enough and I don't play it frequently. Okay, I am the best in the stadium watching the game and yelling.

Thank you. And I have high regard for Professor Reynolds. I like the Redefiners approach. Clark, great meeting you, and Nannis, I know for a long time and great admiration for you. I appreciate it.